This invention relates generally to floor mats of the type wherein loose dirt and soil is removed from shoes and the like which contact the surface of the mat. More particularly, this invention concerns a disposable combination, preferably modular, of a mat for removing loose dirt from objects coming in touch therewith and a disposable support for such mat.
Floor mats with adhesive or tacky surfaces are commonly used in places where it is desirable to prevent loose dirt, particles, debris and the like from being spread about. Operating rooms of hospitals, laboratories, and industrial cleaning rooms are a few examples where dirt and loose particulate matter may cause contamination problems thus the need for attempts to collect such loose particles where possible even before the clean or uncontaminated area is entered.
Extensive carriers of loose particles of dirt, dust and the like are the soles of shoes and wheels of carts used for transporting patients or equipment into clean areas. It has been found that a floor mat with a tacky surface placed at the entrance of such a room or area, directly in the path of travel, is capable of removing substantial if not most of any loose particulate matter on shoe soles, wheels and the like. Besides serving as a collector of undesirable particulate matter, these type floor mats are also very convenient and practical; the floor mats can be made large enough so that a person walking across can step with each foot on the mat, without necessarily stopping, to allow the tacky surface to perform its function. Similarly, wheels or carts or rolling tables need merely to be rolled across a sufficiently large area so that the entire circumference of the wheel passes at least once over the adhesive mat. Especially in emergency situations, the adhesive floor mat concept allows quick passage thereover to collect loose, undesirable particles with no need to pause or stop to achieve these results.
Various types of adhesive floor mat arrangements are now available for use in hospitals or cleaning room applications. One prevalently used floor mat arrangement for collecting loose particles includes a frame support for holding a pad of stacked, peelable adhesive sheets, which act as the medium for removing dirt or dust from shoes and the like. This type of floor mat is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,083,393; 3,400,421; and 3,501,797. The support frame of the floor mat of these patents is secured to the floor at, before or just inside the entrance to the clean area. When the pad of adhesive sheets is depleted, the frame remains permanently affixed to the floor, and a new stack of sheets is inserted into the area bordered by the frame. While this type of arrangement has been successful and adapts well to meet the needs of the clean area, there are a number of problems or deficiencies which are inherent in this concept.
Being permanently or even semi-permanently mounted to the floor reduces the flexibility of use of the tacky floor mats. Specifically, the adhesive mat cannot be readily moved about if the travel patterns across the mat require a change, whether temporarily or on an occasional basis. To move the mat arrangement means that the entire permanently affixed frame has to be dislocated. In addition, for large areas of passage where the regular or normal size mat is not sufficiently large to afford adequate coverage, side by side arrangement is generally a convenient way to provide such coverage, however, with a permanent support frame for holding these pads it becomes cumbersome to have a series of frames affixed to the floor area. Furthermore, the permanently affixed frame often requires disassembling for purposes of cleaning any dirt or dust which accumulates under or around the frame. This, of course, adds additional maintenance expense for this type arrangement.
There are, in addition to the permanent frame mats as described above, floor mat arrangements that provide for the removal of loose dirt without the use of a frame. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,785,102 discloses a throw away pad of tacky sheets for removing loose particles from shoe soles, wheels and the like for clean areas. The bottom most sheet of the pad is treated sufficiently to prevent the entire pad from moving about on the floor area; but yet, even the bottom most pad is eventually peelable from the floor surface. To achieve some of the functionality of the permanent frame type arrangement, the stack of sheets is beveled on all four sides. This beveling provides a slope or incline along the edges of the stack so that wheels of carts or tables can roll somewhat onto the tacky surface rather than having to bump over a more vertically straight surface. While this type of arrangement offers certain advantages over the framed mat assembly, some deficiencies exist in this concept also. For example, as the pad itself is beveled, the area of adhesive on the higher sheets in the stack have increasingly reduced adhesive area. Additionally, the beveling of the pad is an extra operation which not only adds expense but wastes material besides. As can be seen in both the permanently framed floor mat assembly and the unframed floor mat, there is room for improvement for this type of product.